Mobilizing Virtual Reality 101: How the future of VR and AR lies in your pocket, in the clouds and not on what's on your head son....

The future of 3D gaming, a significant chunk of that 3D gaming is going to rely on mobile phones and tablets for content as users and developers on these devices number in the 100s of millions. Consequently the success or very existence  of the coming VR and AR (gaming and non gaming) revolution will be dependent not on L337 gaming PCs,clans,trolls,Angel funding, or next gen consoles, but iOS and Android devices with millions of active developers serving those 100s of millions of active users ..vs hundreds or a handful of developers of note...on traditional gaming platforms..currently fashionably and predictably late with their crowd sourced projects...How's my Hangar coming Mr sorry Chairman Roberts?

Trouble at Treadmill...

It is undesirable and unnecessary for VR and AR activities to be  locked to one static location. The great majority of HMD VR and AR users (outside the MTBS3D Brotherhood) will not be sweaty nauseated core gaming hamsters on treadmills emulating WSAD or arrow key movement in FPS sequels nor will they be Holodeck fantasists entombed in Kinect caves deep in underground university labs/ family home cellars. Portable computing coming together with portable displays both VR and AR is how this tech will evolve. Evolve to fit the users pockets and not just line the developers pockets.  VR and AR are going to be used to  augment every day tasks, whether it is aiming in a FPS game with headtracking faster than a pro twitch FPS gamer or aiming to take a picture with your hmd in an otherwise impossible to do so situation. HMD, headtracking AR and VR devices will all be used to improve performance in every day tasks  .. The most successful developers are going to be ones who target original apps to those tasks...just as Rovio and co managed to target  the smart phone and tablet, when traditional developers were struggling to squeeze console and PC game engines on rails into them.. You can see the seeds have been sown already:

Mobile platforms will be or already are in several cases far more profitable revenue streams than the core gaming specialist  PC VR community.

A VR Circle 

In the near future, mobile GPUS and CPUS will generate more profits than old desktops for ALL hardware manufacturers and designers...not just Apple..or Samsung...  once this rapidly approaching  tipping point is reached the majority of media and games will be consumed as if they aren't already on iOS /Android mobile platforms..  where the majority of games will be developed...where the majority of VR and AR development will live... oh there will still be people shaking their heads in styrofoam HMDs on treadmills in their man caves or what was once their Rocket Propulsion lab... but thankfully we won't have to see them in the game ....unless we want to through our portable VR and AR computer/display devices.

Cloudy with a chance of AR

A second significant change that follows on from mobilization of HMDs  is the growing use of  of the cloud to game and access media to bring about this paradigm shift. Steam has stored our games since the second coming of  Half Life  ..but soon mobile gamers will have access to Sony,Microsoft, Amazon, Google,iOS  clouds and within them torrents of  instant streams  not antiquated downloadable data.. Then start counting cloud gaming services like GAIKAI, onlive , Core Online . And pile on the cloud media delivery services . All of which is accessible by the mobile gamer.  All of which is accessible using portable displays ..your VR or AR HMD ... Oh and  you can throw Nvidia shield in there too , which we tested  with the Cinemizer OLED to create a mobile cloud streaming AAA VR gaming experience that is entirely portable at E3 earlier this year ..and who could forget Splashtop ...that let's us stream any game . 

Latency ... what latency ?...if you are not running 120 meg at least in 2013 write to your MP / Congressman now ...or move somewhere that does.. 

So when and if it launches,  your HMD better interface with or leverage iOS, Android and the cloud as well as PC and next gen console games .. once the hysteria dies down and everyone has fed off the hype currently being generated .. 

Cloud gaming is not a distant future event. The server backbones are being planted deep in dormant Icelandic volcanoes (well that is where I would put them) as I type.. I hear Wikileaks has a few going spare lately..

It's not all Doom(4)  and gloom for current developers, in fact to capitalize on this mobilization of VR , you for example our hero Chairman Roberts , just have to ensure when Star Citizen is finished , it not only runs on L337 hardware in my game cave, but I can stream it to my phone or tablet and via that to my portable hmd... By the time it releases we will be streaming everything everywhere with/from personal clouds, we already can now ... more on this in a second..

Unfortunately I cannot comment on how 3D is coming to your handhelds and HMDS via those handhelds just yet due to NDAs , but rest assured it is not only one of the coolest things to happen to 3D gaming it is an essential piece of the puzzle  for making VR and AR portable activities ...assuming your hmd is portable too ...what? OK may the next  consumer version right ?    

This does not stop me from showing how right now with today's hmds we can connect to portable devices , in this case the Samsung Galaxy S4..  When I get permission I will happily show you how anyone can mobilize their HMD VR and AR experience in 3D..   

But first baby steps here is how to connect your HMD of choice , the Rift , the Cinemizer OLED and the smd ST1080 to the Samsung Galaxy S4 ..and game in 2D .. Since the Cinemizer and smd ST1080 are portable ...so is your VR and AR... More on this in a follow up when the powers that be let me talk about it... 

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